Swept Away

Last week on Twitter my brother retweeted this picture posted by You Had One Job, with the words 'Short story inspiration/challenge?' I, of course, accepted the challenge and here it is ...

Swept Away

The river was the high that day. Flood alerts on the local news. The water lifted vehicles out of carparks and from waterside streets the previous evening. They floated downstream to be left on the banks miles further up. Like that old UPS van behind Joe. It washed up from the car museum in town. We saw a Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang car too. It should have flown away when it saw the water levels rising.

Stopping a passing policeman to take our picture was a bit daring but he was too preoccupied with the flood water and washed up vehicles. We'd just come out of the register office, you see. Sixteen and getting married. We’d known each other since we were twelve. We had no family with us. We did it in secret. We knew what we wanted. Why wait?

I asked Joe to hold my bag while I switched to selfie mode to check my hair and redo my lip gloss. My little sister bought me this novelty handbag. I’d have preferred a plain one but she was so pleased it. Sewing’s my job and my hobby. I made my own dress. A very simple white maxi dress with silver sequins at the neck. You’ll see it on the other photos.

Of course I love the photos of the two of us together but this photo does make me laugh. Joe appears to be holding a sewing machine. So random. And look at his cute smile.

Yeah, I still use the bag. I keep Joe’s ashes in it.

The floods were even higher the year after. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He got swept away.

The Impossible Thing Gets Even More Impossibler

After a conversation with my Dad about how the scales in Boots measure your height and they'd told me I was just under 5ft11 when I've always thought I was 6ft, he said he would measure me. I'm certain it was quite accurate; a piece of card, a pencil, a wall and a metal tape measure. I was stunned at the result. I'm 5ft10.

5ft10!!!

After a bit of googling I found out that women shrink two inches and men shrink one inch as we go from our thirties, into our forties and fifties. But, I soon realised, the big implication is - more googling required - a lower target weight.

So, I need to lose another ten pounds to get to one pound below the top of the ideal weight range for my height. 130 pounds in total as opposed to 120. The good news is I'm still past halfway. Phew! 67 down, 63 to go.

This new target is a weight I think I've not been since I was about twelve/thirteen years old. See? IMPOSSIBLE.

Sigh.

Am I downhearted? Nah! If that's the weight I have to be to find out what its like not to be fat, then that's where I'm heading. Slowly. Onwards and back-and-forth-in-the-pool-&-on-the-prom-wards and downwards.